February 22, 2010

Avatar of the Year 2009 - 3rd Place: Sion Zauis

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Patrick Davison explains Sion Chickens in 5 minutes

Official presentation of the 2009 Avatar of the Year awards were unavoidably delayed by staff vacations during the holidays followed by a frenetic flood of breaking news in early 2010, but given the outstanding levels of achievement on the part of all this year's participants it would be criminal not to acknowledge their achievements.

And so, without further delay, the Herald is pleased to name the avatars that had the biggest impact - for better or worse - on the metaverse in 2009. Three avatars will join an elite group which includes such luminaries as the garrulous griefer Prokofy Neva, the grid crashing Plastic Duck, the infamous N3x13 and D3adl3yc0d3c, and Tizzers Foxchase of Woodbury University.

In third place for 2009, Sion Zauis and his Sion chickens represent the sort of customer service and ever changing rules of the game that haven endeared Linden Lab to its residents players.

Sion Zauis chickens, which require constant infusions of special food purchased with L$ spacebux, then fall victim to hard bumps from other players, intermittently produce eggs which created an unsustainable secondary egg economy - clearly Mr. Zauis is a master at Linden Lab parody. Even better, Zauis's perhaps unintentional parody ultimately enlisted a large population of players in his synthetic chicken enterprise.

The height of Mr. Zauis's achievements are documented in Patrick Davison's video explanation of how chickens ultimately became lagtastic weapons in the faction wars of Second Life. Today, the Herald salutes Sion Zaius and the flawed forced march upgrades of virtual chicken technology he subjected his customers to in 2009.

Sion Zaius isn't a griefer, for one. And the award isn't for 'top avatar', it's for 'avatars that had the biggest impact - for better or worse - on the metaverse' a completely different thing.

The hard fact is, griefing probably does have the largest, most wide-reaching effect on grid and LL's policy, so it's only fitting that they do end up as the recipient of such awards.

If only upstanding avatars would work together for a common cause and gain wide-spread influence over the grid and policy, instead of simply grubbing after dollars, or figuring out what cute new hair to buy.

I'm gonna take a wild guess that Kalel's going to get the 2nd or 3rd spot, with Plexus possibly sharing it. As much of an effect as NeilLife has had on the grid, please promise me that you won't give that little piece of shit any sort of award.

I'm rooting for either Pappy Enoch, Dianna Llewellyn, or Jumpman Lane for Avatar of the Year. Anything less would be a tragedy of epic proportions. Pappy and Jumpman should be honored for their sheer entertainment value - if trivia and irrelevance can be thought of as entertaining - and Dianna because her gravity-defying boobs are much bigger than those of Pappy and Jumpy, and most awards are won my complete tits anyway.